Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Splitsville: Madonna and Tracy Anderson


Former BFF's, Madonna and her controversial trainer, Tracy Anderson

So, apparently Madonna and her controversial personal trainer, Tracy Anderson have parted ways. The break-up comes after criticism of the pop icon's highly muscled arms and charges that she has become obsessed with exercise, working out 4-6 hours per day at times. It is also rumored that Madonna was not pleased with the Philippe van den Bossche, former director of her Raising Malawi Charity, leaving the post to join Anderson in New York as her new boyfriend.

Following the break-up, Anderson is now being sued by a former partner, Glynn Barbar, for $1 million dollars. He alleges that she swindled him our of $1 million in initial investments in her business and despite her evident success, she has not returned any of the venture funds to him. In the NY Post article, his English seemed a bit broken, so I hope he has contracts and documentation to back up his claims.

I'm not celebrating the demise of Ms. Anderson's business--and of course she still has her #2 client, Gwyneth Paltrow, at least two studios, and a DVD business. In previous FFFB posts, I've pointed out that Ms. Anderson claims that anybody can look like Madonna, which is patently false and which dismisses the value of body diversity. We've also called Ms. Anderson out for her size 0 perfection worship and the promotion of fitness routines that might fall in the exercise-bulimia category. Its crucial to remember that sometimes these media empires, particularly those that are predicated on flash-in-the-pan exercise fads are sometimes a house of cards. Ms. Anderson's fame and fortune seems to be just that. So, instead of trying to find the right exercise guru to fix our problems, let's all make a commitment to do something reasonable today. Thursday I went to the gym and got on the elliptical machine for 30 minutes (after having taken a mile walk as part of a campus Wellness activity), Friday and Saturday I helped a family member move (that's cardio and toning!), Monday I took a 50 minute walk outdoors, today I take another walk and I'll do a Pilates DVD (its Fall break, so I should be able to squeeze both in).

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